Jennifer Jacobs nicely captures just how gobsmacked Anita Perry seems to be by the intensity of a presidential race, during a campaign swing surrogating for her husband through Iowa:

“I thought I was pretty seasoned, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.

But while the campaign's line has generally been that the only change from a campaign rocked by three poor debate performances will be to double-down on Mitt Hate, Anita Perry was more introspective:

She repeatedly turned her comments to a defense of criticism about her husband’s groggy debate performance last week, saying, “he’s never had a debate class or a debate coach in his life. … He’s going to be better prepared next time.”

Anita Perry said she thought the Rick Perry did “great” in first GOP debate, became a target in the second debate and then fell under serious attack in the third as his rivals tried to “throw him off message because he was leading in the polls.”

“Honestly, I’m going to speak frankly from my heart, I think he takes arrows because they want to knock him out from that position,” she said. “I think that’s why he’s the target.”